We’ve got a few new posters to share with you today.  Briefly:

• Wreck-It Ralph – The teaser poster for Disney’s new animated film which takes place in the world of video games and centers on an 8-bit arcade villain voiced by John C. Reilly.
• The Host – The first poster for director Andrew Niccol’s adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi novel The Host.  Saoirse Ronan stars as a young girl whose body has become host to an alien invader.
• Safety Not Guaranteed – A new poster for this indie based on a real-life classified ad calling for a time-travel companion.  Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, and Jake Johnson star.
• Hysteria – The US poster for this romantic comedy based on the invention of the vibrator.  The film stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Felicity Jones.
• Cosmopolis – The French poster for director David Cronenberg’s financial crisis-centered thriller starring Robert Pattinson.

Hit the jump to check out the posters and full synopses.

Four new posters tonight.  From:

• Bel Ami – Robert Pattinson stars as a man who uses “his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth” in 1890s Paris. Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci, and Colm Meaney co-star.
• The Cold Light of Day – Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, and Sigourney Weaver star in the spy thriller about a man who finds himself on the run when his family is kidnapped by intelligence agents.
• Friends with Kids – Jennifer Westfeldt,Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox and Edward Burns star in the comedy about two friends who decide to have a baby together.
  
• Hysteria – Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett and Felicity Jones star in this romantic comedy that revolves around the invention of the vibrator.

Hit the jump for the posters and synopses for each movie.

2012 has begun and that means fresh optimism!  Fresh movies!  Fresh images from those movies!  After the jump you’ll find 21 new images from upcoming movies like  The Hunger Games, Men in Black 3, Rock of Ages, The Five-Year Engagement, The Gangster Squad, and plenty more (for our purposes, plenty =  16).

This one’s for the ladies: Hysteria, the Tanya Wexler-directed picture starring Oscar-nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal, has sold its US and South African rights to Sony Pictures Classics. The romantic comedy is based on the historically (and hysterically) accurate tale of Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville’s invention of the first vibrator, all in the name of medical science. The heart of the film is about the realization that everyone is in control of their own happiness.

Written by Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, and produced by the all-female trio of Sarah Curtis, Judy Cairo and Tracey Becker, Hysteria also stars Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett and Felicity Jones. Hit the jump for more on Hysteria.

The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival has come to a close.  We covered the hell out of it and we’ve got loads of interviews still to post.  Today, TIFF announced the winners in three award categories for Canadian films and the winners of the Cadillac People’s Choice Awards.  Nathan Morlando’s crime drama Edwin Boyd (pictured above) won Best Canadian First Feature Film, Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar picked up the award for Best Canadian Feature Film, and Ian Harnarine’ Doubles With Slight Pepper was awarded Best Canadian Short Film.  As for the Cadillac People’s Choice Awards, Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now? won the top prize, Jon Shenk’s The Island President won in the documentary category, and Gareth Evans’ The Raid picked up the award for The Cadillac People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award.

Hit the jump for the full press release along with a list of all the films that were sold to distributors.  Keep in mind that just because a film didn’t sell during the festival, that doesn’t mean it won’t be picked up for distribution in the near future.

Tanya Wexler’s Hysteria is a silly little historical comedy and there’s nothing wrong with that.  The film is about the creation of the vibrator or as the opening title card tells us “The following is based on true events.  Really.”  Going into Hysteria, I was initially worried that there might be an unsettling subtext implying the only way women can get over their problems is through sexual relief and they owe it all to ingenious men.  Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case, although there’s not much case at all other than to make the audience chuckle at citizens in Victorian England having orgasms and misunderstanding sex.  Hysteria goes a little overboard at times with its self-aware pronouncements and unrealistic characters, but it is inarguably the best movie you’ll see all year featuring Jonathan Pryce fingerblasting an old lady.

With the announcement of new additions to this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, new images have gone online.  After the jump you’ll find the first images from The Awakening (starring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, and Imelda Staunton), Hysteria (starring Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal), Winnie (starring Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard), and Andrea Arnold’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Hit the jump to check out the new images and a synopsis for each film.  The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 – 18th. [We've updated the story with the trailer for Hysteria]

A task can’t get “more impossible”, but the prospect of seeing everything I want at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival just got more impossible.  We’ve already shown you the incredible line-ups for the Galas & Special Presentations, Real-to-Reel (Documentary), Midnight Madness, Vanguard, TIFF Kids, City to City, Canadian Features, and Canada First! programs. Now even more must-see movies have been thrown into the mix.  TIFF has announced that the spy thriller Page Eight (starring Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, and Ralph Fiennes) will be the closing night film in the Galas section.  Other films added to Galas and Special Presentations include Sleeping Beauty (starring Emily Browning), Winnie (starring Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard), Intruders (starring Clive Owen), Violet & Daisy (starring Saoirse Ronan and Alexis Bledel), and more.

Hit the jump to check out the additions to the Galas and Special Presenations line-up.  The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 – 18th.  Click here for all of our TIFF 2011 coverage.

“Only a sick society could bear the hoardings, let alone the films.”

- Derek Hill (in regards to Hammer films and their output), Sight and Sound 1958-59

The above quote, which opens Marcus Hearn’s Hammer movie-poster book, The Art of Hammer, is indicative of the content contained within. Judging by the artwork Hearn has collected, it’s not hard to see how Hammer gained such a tawdry reputation. From half naked women to fully-nude women to ghouls, vampires, murderers, psychopaths, mummies and any other monster one could possibly imagine, the posters’ single aim seems to be at appealing to the most lurid and primal impulses. As such, I – of course – found myself quite taken with the collection.

Amid the same round of press where Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed she would star alongside Peter Sarsgaard in a Bill Monroe biopic, the actress spoke a bit about her upcoming role in Hysteria:

I play a firecracker whose father is a doctor who is in the business of curing hysterical women. He cures them basically by getting them off and that actually happened. I end up having a sort of unexpected love affair with this guy who works for him, and who by mistake invents the vibrator. [ScreenCrave]

Variety confirms Gyllenhaal’s involvement in the period rom-com, which most headlines have taken to calling a “vibrator comedy.”  Hugh Dancy has been cast opposite Gyllenhaal as the doctor (and romantic interest) who works for her father, played by Jonathan Pryce.  Rupert Everett also stars, with Tanya Wexler directing from a script by Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer.  Hysteria is slated for an October shoot.

While working the press rounds for Nanny McPhee Returns, Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that she would star alongside husband Peter Sarsgaard in a biopic of musician Bill Monroe.  She described her role in the film,

“Bill Monroe, who invented bluegrass music had a kind of Sid and Nancy style affair with this woman Bessie Lee Mauldin throughout his life and T-Bone Burnett’s going to do the music and Callie Khouri — who wrote Thelma & Louise — wrote the script so we’re going to do that together.” [Screen Crave]

Sounds like an interesting project, and it’s worth noting that both names Ms. Gyllenhaal mentioned are Oscar winners; Finn Taylor (The Darwin Awards) is on board as director.  Following her appearance in the Nanny McPhee sequel, Gyllenhaal will next be seen Hysteria, in which she has an “unexpected love affair” with the man who accidentally invents the vibrator.  Hmm.